Le Plus Ça Change

It skewers not just the internal illogic and moral cowardice of the Iraq war’s current (and past) cheerleaders, but reminds us that the same curious phenomenon that occurred after the Vietnam War is already playing itself out among the governing and chattering classes: the people who were wrong about the war try to claim that the people who were right about the war “too early” (i.e. from the start) should be treated by all right-thinking folk as political lepers.

Banquo’s ghost will not be banished so easily.

It does all remind me of the classic six stages of policy development (also sometimes called the stages of the product cycle):

1. Enthusiasm 2. Disillusion 3. Panic 4. Search for the Guilty 5. Punishment of the Innocent 6. Praise and Honors for the Non-Participants